Murder "She," He Wrote

I’ve stuck recently to two posts per hebdomad, but because of recent events at a French satirical weekly, I’m blogging three times this week. I’m Hebdo mad.

How could human beings display such an ugly mix of intolerance and violence? That’s an inquiry to delve into elsewhere. Here, we’ll tackle a trivial question.

How could she manage to slip away?

She didn’t flee. In fact, she refuses to leave quietly.

Study the text. She arrives near the beginning of the blue line, and three words later — this will make you flip — here she comes again.

Knee-deep in she are we.

I knew she would show up, but why did she make a return visit? If she’s like the wind, as Patrick Swayze once professed, I wish she’d blow.

We must treat that second reference as if it were radical Islam — eliminate it.

She will get hers.

I hope Hayat Boumeddiene does too.

Je suis Charlie.

David Pope

Damien Glez

Dave Granlund

Lost and Found

Murray State lost Tennessee State? What happened? How could an entire university go missing? No tracking device? No implanted microchip? This isn’t like misplacing gloves or sunglasses; Tennessee State is valuable. We’ve got to find it. I’ll initiate the search by putting up LOST UNIVERSITY posters and offering a substantial reward.

Relax, readers. Tennessee State isn’t missing. (The school is in Nashville.) What is missing is the to that precedes it. I doubt it can be found. I’ll look for it and get back to you.

[Owen checks couch cushions, coat pockets, lost-and-found bins, dictionary entries between TNT and toad, and, with some assistance from James Cameron, the depths of the Mariana Trench. No luck. His hope wanes.]

Eureka! My frantic search for to lasted all of one day. (It turned out to be more difficult than the time I found my mom’s glasses on top of her head but easier than the time I helped my brother look for his car keys on a beach in the wee hours of the morning. True stories.) In the following day’s paper, I saw this: 

I spotted to, wandering aimlessly, not far from Memphis. The lost to had been found. It hadn’t even crossed state lines.

I can cross “Find ‘to’” off my to-do list. Now, if I could only find that to-do list…

The Distance-Distant Distinction

I’m taking a stance this instant and insisting distance should be distant.

Distance is a noun that usually refers to the degree or amount of separation between two objects. The separation can be measured in physical length or on an emotional level. Distant is an adjective; it describes someone or something that is separated spatially, or a person who is reserved or aloof. Allow me to use each in a short paragraph:

In the distant past, I lived within walking distance from the distant woman, but I kept my distance. Today I live in a distant galaxy, and there is considerable distance between us. She is a distant memory.

As you can see, it isn’t difficult to distinguish distant from distance. Why, then, has the distal letter in distant been dissed? I find that disturbing. We are, however, within striking distance of fixing this distracting distance-distant mistake. Let’s do it! Let’s go the distance!

In this instance, let’s step a safe distance away from distance. The ce should be t. As is the case in any “rat race,” t wins and ce comes in … wait for it … a distant second.